1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tile, in particular a tile comprising an electro-physical transducer.
The present invention further relates to an assembly of tiles with a carrier.
The present invention further relates to a method of manufacturing an assembly.
2. Related Art
An electro-physical transducer is defined herein as a device that converts an electrical signal into a physical phenomenon, or that converts a physical phenomenon into an electrical signal. Examples of the first are electro-luminescent devices, electro-acoustic devices, and electro-chrome devices. Examples of the second are photovoltaic devices, acoustic sensors, and touch sensors.
Electro-optical devices are known that are manufactured in the form of a flexible foil. Although this allows certain degrees of freedom it is still not possible to deform such devices into arbitrary shapes, for example in the form of a spherical shape. It may be considered to manufacture such devices into a particular predetermined shape for example by successively depositing layers onto a mold having the desired shape. However, the resulting product can not be deformed into another shape for other applications, let alone that the product is arbitrarily deformable during use.
There is a need for electro-physical transducers that can be deformed for other purposes or that even can be arbitrarily deformed during use.
The need for having arbitrarily deformable transducers arises for example from applications in which the electronics is to be readily fitted to a certain three dimensional object, e.g. as a coverage of furniture or car interiors for example.
A need to allow for deformations during use for example arises in medical applications, for example in applications using photon radiation for treatment of the human skin. Another example is in robotics, wherein it is desired to have a touch sensitive function in an artificial skin, having a deformable shape.
It is noted that WO/2009/134127 describes a composite microphone that comprises a flexible and stretchable substrate with a grid of flexible and stretchable first and second conductors. The first conductors are arranged transverse to the second conductors. A plurality of acoustic sensors is each in connection with a respective pair of conductors in the grid. The substrate carrying the acoustic sensors can be arranged upon arbitrary shaped surfaces, for example on a hemispheric surface, therewith obtaining a microphone that is sensitive in a large spatial angle.
In an assembly of tiles with a flexible or foldable carrier it is desirable that the tiles on the one hand are reliably attached to the carrier, and that the tiles on the other hand restrict the movement of the carrier as little as possible.